Abortion is illegal in Kentucky.[1][2][3] There were laws in Kentucky about abortion by 1900, including ones with therapeutic exceptions. In 1998, the state passed legislation that required clinics to have an abortion clinic license if they wanted to operate. By the early 2010s, members of the Kentucky Legislature attempted to ban abortion in almost all cases and had also introduced the early abortion bans. Prior to 2019, Kentucky law prohibited abortions after week 22. This changed when the state legislature passed a law that moved the prohibition to week 6 in the early part of the year. A bill passed and made effective in April 2022 lowered the threshold to 15 weeks, the second most restrictive limit in effect in the United States behind Texas, and introduced regulations that made abortion illegal until it was blocked in federal court.
Effective upon Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overruling of Roe v. Wade, Kentucky's trigger law, HB 148,[2] went into effect, prohibiting abortion except as necessary to prevent possible death or risk of permanent injury to the pregnant woman. On June 30, 2022, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Mitch Perry issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the state's abortion ban pending further hearings to determine if the ban violates the Kentucky Constitution. This order temporarily allowed both of Kentucky's elective abortion providers, which are both located in Louisville, to temporarily resume elective abortions.[4] Kentucky's trigger law banning abortions was reinstated on August 1, 2022.[5][6]
The number of abortion clinics has declined over time, with eleven abortion clinics in 1982, nine in 1992, two in 2002, and one in 2017. There were 4,923 legal abortions in 2014, and 4,585 in 2015.